TV Squad Ten: Top Bromances on TV right now

Bromances have been around, well, forever really, but you'd never use the term for say, Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte (48 Hours) or Paul Newman and Robert Redford (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid). That just wouldn't be right! And besides that, when do "buddies" turn into "bromantic pals"? Would love to hear your thoughts on that.

At any rate, "bromance" is part of our language now, and it's even the title of an MTV show starring Brody Jenner and his buds.

I'm not ashamed to say I have girl-crushes on a few TV babes (True Blood's Sookie Stackhouse springs to mind), so it's not unfeasible for a guy to have a man-crush on another guy. I don't know if that's true for all these pairings, but since I'm writing this, we'll say it is. Take a look at my top ten bromances on TV right now:

These two have a long history that includes dead wives, severed alliances, and heroic entrances (remember Tony bursting into the warehouse and saving Jack's ass?). But now they're back together, and I'm guessing it won't be long before they're uttering that age-old phrase, "I love you, man." Either that or one will blow the others' head off and call it a day. It's so hard to tell with these two.

Talk about a friendship that knows no bounds. Ando not only left his cubicle job to follow Hiro through time and space, but the two are slowly but surely saving the world from ultimate doom. We need a new phrase for these two: Super-Bros!

These two have a long history that involves makeups, breakups, and everything in between. Really, it borders on psychotic sometimes. When Wilson quit the hospital, House hired a private detective to follow him around and see if he was missing House as much as House was missing him. But all was forgiven when Wilson kidnapped House and drove him to Florida to attend his dad's funeral.

These two friends have been through thick and thin together. Tim helped Jason deal with living in a wheelchair, went to Mexico with he and Lily, and the two friends even formed a house-flipping business. But the culmination of their bromance was when Tim went with Jason to New York to get a job as a sports agent and reunite with the mother of his child. When they said goodbye, it was like Hubbell and Katie in the last scene of The Way We Were.

First they're friends, then they're business associates, then they're neither, then they're friends again ... these two have more make-ups and break-ups than Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson. But in the end, you know they'll hug it out, whether it's in an airport a la Casablanca or in the back of a Hummer.

Ted and Marshall have been best friends since college, but it's clear that Barney's got Marshall's back. Why else would he fly to San Francisco to convince Lily to come back to New York after she and Marshall broke up? It must be love.

I turned to Joel, the Squad's resident Scrubs expert, for this one: "Turk and J.D. are the bromantic couple against which all others are measured. Not only have they been around the longest, but they show more affection than most married couples do. From their pet names -- "Vanilla Bear" and "Chocolate Bear" -- to their semi-manly hugs, to goofy stuff like the Steak Night Dance, the old college buddies display a "Guy Love" that seems like it will last a lifetime."

It's been a long road for these two characters. The cantankerous Lt. Provenza and the slick Lt. Andy Flynn may seem like opposites, which is probably why they keep landing in painfully awkward situations together, like the funeral in which a dropped casket revealed a second corpse.

These two have been friends for years, but the minute Dale suspects Hank might be working against him, Dale's yelling at Nancy to "Get me a gun!" Still, without each other, Hank would have to drink beer with Bill, and Dale would have no one to interpret his special language. They're stuck with each other. We won't call it a bromance, though. Hank would hate that.

Sure, we've heard all the rumors that these two are more than just friends. On-screen, they flirt in the back of limos. Off-screen, they share dinner in a cozy restaurant. I guess they're perfect for each other because collectively, they pretty much rule the music and TV and radio business. That's a lot for an outsider to compete with, so go for it, guys.

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31 Comments

WTF!!! J.D. And Turk are the best "bromance" on tv ever, just watch the guy love song to see, I disagree with this list. Here is my list of the best Bromances on tv. 1. J.D. and Turk(Scrubs) 2. Bret and Jermaine on The Flight of the Conchords 3.Alan and Denny(Boston Legal) I know the show ended last year but they did get married in the finale I think that says it all. 4. the guys from "How I met Your Mother" 5. Leonard and Sheldon 6. Chuck and Morgan on "Chuck" 7. the guys on "Entourage" 8. Hank and dale on King of The Hill 9.Michael and Dwight on the office 10. Walt and Jesse on Breaking Bad 11.(Jon stewart and stephen colbert

What a dumbass list, like every other you geniuses try to make... Where the hell are Denny and Alan, Shawn and Gus, and even Tigh and Adama? Could someone please direct me towards a GOOD TV blog, because people writing for TV squad are idiots, to say the least...

your new format is totally idiotic, stop the slideshows that take forever to load. put the lists back up in the same page, how hard is that. did your nephew teach you how to do it and now u just have to do it cuz you wanna show us you can do slideshows?

I always think about who I'd put on there, when I read these things. That's the point, obvs. I think you could say Butch and Sundance were a bromance, but if you're looking for TV references... there are some classics. I mean, Andy had a bromance with many of his partners on NYPD Blue. Starsky and Hutch, definite Bromance. The Odd Couple. Denny and Allan on Boston Legal are arguably the ultimate.

Gus and Shawn was a huge omission. Likewise, Sam and Dean on Supernatural. Yep, they put the BRO in bromance.